College of Humanities and
Fine Arts Spring Faculty
Meeting
Student Learning in CHFA Majors
and Assessment
February 13, 2008
Program prepared by the CHFA SOA Committee
Addressing the Issues: Learning
Outcomes
 How did departments decide what learning
goals and outcomes to assess?
Learning Outcomes continued:
Paired Discussion:
Has your department used any of these
methods for identifying learning goals and
outcomes?
Would any of the methods discussed here work
in your department?
Addressing the Issues: Faculty
Involvement
 How did you become involved in Student
Outcomes Assessment (SOA)?
 How has your department encouraged faculty
commitment and involvement?
Faculty Involvement Continued:
Paired Discussion:
 In your department, how involved do faculty
want to be/need to be with SOA?
 What methods would you suggest for
encouraging faculty commitment?
Addressing the Issues: Assessment
Methods
 How did you choose the assessment
methods?
 How were they developed?
 What are some of your methods?
Critical Reading Rubric
SOPHISTICATED
COMPETENT
PARTIALLY COMPETENT
COMPREHENSION
--Distinguished/extracted main
ideas/thesis
--Paraphrased clearly and
concisely
--offers examples/ideas that
support main thesis/idea of the text
--Distinguished/extracted main
idea/thesis, but could be more clear:
writing sample included additional or
unnecessary ideas related to main
idea/thesis; omitted ideas important
to understanding the main idea/thesis
--Paraphrased clearly, but could be
more concise
--Failed to recognize main
idea/thesis
--No apparent ranking of
most important
ideas/thesis
--Needs to work on
paraphrasing clearly and
concisely
--examples only partially
support main idea/thesis
ANALYSIS
--Makes clear and comprehensive
connections between examples
and main idea/thesis
--Makes somewhat clear connections
between examples and main
idea/thesis or, only some connections
between examples and main
idea/thesis are made
--Links between examples
and main idea/thesis need
to be forged
SYNTHESIS
--Question has significant
implications for
strengths/weaknesses of author's
thesis
--Question has some implications for
strengths/weaknesses of author's
thesis
--Question does not reveal
an understanding of the
strengths/weaknesses of
the author's thesis
Addressing the Issues: Assessment
Methods continued
Paired Discussion:
 What are some methods you have tried or
some methods that you would like to try?
Addressing the Issues: Using the Data
 What were some of the findings from your
assessment?
 What are you doing now with the results?
 How is SOA connected to other curricular
initiatives in your department?
Addressing the Issues: Using the Data
Paired Discussion:
 How are you connecting SOA with other
curricular initiatives in your department?
Addressing the Issues: What Challenges Have You Faced in
Implementing Assessment?

Some in our department are concerned that SOA is a fad and are unwilling to invest time
and energy in it as a consequence.

Our small major has little data in any given year on which to base curricular decisions.

Confusion remains in our department about the purposes of assessment. Does it focus
on individual students? The curriculum?

Our biggest challenge is remembering what we did last year and what we have promised
to do next year. We live in the assessment present!

We wish assessment weren’t an “add on” and that we could embed meaningful
assessment more often in what we already do in the classroom.

What are the respective responsibilities of department heads and faculty for assessment?
Should heads be entirely “hands-off?”

We don’t have time to do high quality assessment, which would require the collaborative
examination of a large number of artifacts generated by students in our large major.
Challenges Continued:
Paired Discussion:
 From the list of challenges, on the previous
slide, choose one to discuss.
 Brainstorm solutions and write them on the
giant post-it note.
Addressing the Issues: Future
Directions
Please fill out the following survey before
leaving today.
 How can individual departments in CHFA be
supported in their SOA work?
 What are some strategies for CHFA to use to
continue to build a culture of assessment?